Voyager 1 experiencing 'tsunami wave', beyond the solar system

Voyager 1 experiencing 'tsunami wave', beyond the solar system

DDN CorrespondentPosted on 19 Dec, 2014 at 12:23:PM IST

Messages that were received from the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1, travelling at a distance of 19.5 billion kms from Earth, indicate that it is experiencing a "tsunami wave" with the spacecraft penetrating the interstellar medium beyond the solar System.

The spacecraft which was launched in the year 1977 is the farthest away a man made object has gone from Earth till date. Until now, signals from its instruments travelling at the speed of light take some 36 hours and 14 minutes to reach Earth.

Don Gurnett, employed as a professor of physics at the University of Iowa in Iowa City presented the new information at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on December 15.

A "tsunami wave" occurs at a time when the sun releases a coronal mass ejection, expelling a magnetic cloud of plasma from its surface. This produces a wave of pressure. The moment, the wave runs into the interstellar plasma, the charged particles seen in the space between the stars -- a shock wave results that upsets the plasma.

This is the third shock wave experienced by the spacecraft Voyager 1.

The spacecraft detected this recent occurrence in the month of February, which is still continuing. It moved outward 250 million miles (400 million kilometers) in the third event